Whisper Memories
by The Last Princess of Hyrule
Summary: AU-FH, FINISHED Yukari's death makes Hitomi unsure of her own desire to live. Folken could be the only one to keep her from the edge, but compassion has never been his strong suit ...
1. Part 1: Hello

**Disclaimer: **_Tenkuu no Escaflowne _is property of Bandai and Sunrise, all rights reserved. I am in no way affiliated with these companies, and am not making profit. Any similarities between my work and anyone else's is purely coincidental. Lyrics to "Hello" are property of Evanescence, all rights reserved.

- X - x - X -

**_"Whisper Memories"_ -- Part 1: Hello**

By The Last Princess of Hyrule

- X - x - X -

_**Playground school bell rings again,  
Rain clouds come to play again . . .**_

- X - x - X -

Yukari was dead.

That was the only thing Hitomi could see, the only thing she could hear, feel, and breathe. Her whole world, everything that had been, that was, and could ever be, stopped in the moment she saw her friend, a broken body and a bloody knife amidst the bark chips of the primary school playground.

There were tears flowing down Hitomi's cheeks, tears mixing with the steady rainfall streaming from black clouds covering the heavens. If she had been thinking of it, Hitomi would have said God was weeping for Yukari just like Hitomi, but all Hitomi's thoughts were blank save for the fact that Yukari Uchida, her best friend, had commit suicide. The rain splashed onto Yukari's pale face and rolled into her glassy periwinkle eyes. Everything in Hitomi's mind was Yukari for that one instant in time, and then Yukari was nothing.

Hitomi sat back on her heels, wood chips stabbing her legs and the cold breeze bighting her arms. _Damn it, Yukari, _Hitomi thought. _How could you . . .? _Hitomi's body was shaking and her tears came in torrents of salty liquid, washing her face of all the anger she had been feeling only moments ago until there was only grief.

"She's dead, you know."

Hitomi jumped and turned. Several feet above her, leaning over a metal guardrail on the top of the play equipment with its worn red paint, was a young man, staring down at her with a blank face. He had deep crimson eyes and icy blue hair complemented by the deep azure of his school uniform. There was something mysterious and yet familiar about him that Hitomi could not quite place.

"W-who're you?" she asked between sobs. "What're you doing here?!"

"Waiting," he said. His voice was deep, like the rumbling thunder crashing overhead. Dark clouds had rolled in late that afternoon, covering the city of Tokyo in shadows. Leering, haunting shadows—shadows with dark power that had brought with them the catalyst, which drove Yukari to her last moments of life.

- X - x - X -

_**Has no one told you she's not breathing?  
Hello . . .**_

- X - x - X -

_"Dad came home last night," said Yukari._

_She and Hitomi were on the metro train headed for school. It was early Tuesday morning and outside the windows, Tokyo was lit up brilliantly. On those dark days in January, sometimes the sun did not rise until second hour at school._

_"How come?" asked Hitomi, turning down her CD player. They were sitting on a long bench-style seat facing inward of the train._

_"Mom called him. She wanted to apologize for throwing him out last time," Yukari explained. She was looking out the window over her shoulder at the lights whisking past like thousands of fireflies. It was hard to tell by the expression on her face that Yukari was upset over this, but Hitomi saw her hands clenched in her lap and knew better._

_"Stupid bitch," she commented._

_"Yeah."_

_"So . . ." Hitomi hesitated. This was a rather touchy subject for Yukari, hard to bring up, hard to talk about, hard to believe, yet not at all hard to understand. "What'd he do?"_

_Yukari's eyes began to fill with tears. "Well, it was about six when he came home last night. Mom made him a fancy dinner and we all sat around the table like we were a real family or something. They asked me about school and all that stuff, Dad said Mom's cooking was excellent, and all the usual crap. We even sat around the TV and watched a movie together."_

_Under her muddy brown skirt, Hitomi saw Yukari's right knee begin to shake. "I went to bed early that night so I wouldn't have to talk to him. At like ten or something he and Mom went in her room and . . . well, you know. I had to turn up my radio pretty loud not to hear her screaming. It was pretty gross."_

_Hitomi made a retch and looked repulsed. "They should get a hotel or something. Or get you one."_

_"Or let me spend the night with you," Yukari agreed. _

_"For sure."_

_"At least then I wouldn't be around when Dad was there." She turned back to Hitomi. "You know, I even asked Mom if I could call you and spend the night at your house because he was coming, but she wouldn't let me. She said we had to be a _family _again."_

_"She's full of shit."_

_"No doubt."_

_"So, did he do anything?"_

_Yukari looked down at her lap, rubbing her hands together nervously. "__Yeah."_

_Hitomi put a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder, causing the girl to flinch._

_"It was around midnight when he came in my room," Yukari went on, her eyes locked on a piece of old chewing gum on the floor. Her voice was quiet, not quite a whisper but not a normal conversation volume. "I was asleep so I didn't hear him come in. I didn't hear him till he was on the bed next to me. Then I woke up and he was running his hand along my side._

_"I got up and tried to shove him away, but he grabbed my wrists and held me down. Then he stuffed a rolled-up sock in my mouth so I couldn't scream." Her hands had gone white and, when she released them, Hitomi saw the sharp imprints of her fingernails on the palms. "You can pretty much guess the rest after that."_

_"Fucking bastard," Hitomi muttered, just loudly enough that Yukari could hear but no one else. "Someday I swear to God I'm just gonna take a dull knife and saw his damn balls off."_

_She reached out and grabbed her friend, pulling Yukari into a tight embrace. Yukari bawled into Hitomi's shoulder, her cries were muffled the fabric of Hitomi's shirt. None of the other passengers took any notice of the two girls. _

_"It's gonna be okay," Hitomi whispered in Yukari's ear, rubbing her back gently. "I promise it'll be okay." Yukari's tears drenched the front of Hitomi's off-white uniform jacket and when they got off the train, it looked like Hitomi had been shot with a squirt gun. But no one asked questions._

- X - x - X -

**_I am your mind,  
Giving you someone to talk to,  
Hello . . ._**

- X - x - X -

Hitomi watched the stranger carefully. The circumstances of his being there were lees than in his favor. Hitomi was suspicious. _Could Yukari have actually been murdered? I don't want to think she'd have killed herself, but it makes sense. This guy could just be in the wrong place at the wrong time . . . _Hitomi, however, did not want to think about him in that way. It was much easier and gave her much better closure to think of him as Yukari's killer. "Who are you?" she asked again.

"My name is Folken," he said. "I'm a senior at—"

"I don't give a fuck!" Hitomi shouted. "I just wanna know what the hell you're doing here! What did you do to my friend?!"

Folken climbed limberly down one side of the play equipment, his lanky form descending gracefully. "If you're thinking I killed her, you're wrong. I followed her here. You see, I work after school at this place," he jerked his thumb back at the primary school building, "as a math tutor for some of the kids. I saw your friend out here and came out to see what she was doing. It's not that often I see another high school student around here."

"Yeah, that's fuckin' great, isn't it?" Hitomi, stricken with rage and grief and confused by Folken's statement, jumped to her feet. A thousand irrational thoughts rushed through here head and all of them reiterated the original thought that Folken was the reason for Yukari's death.

"So you just looked out the window and watched her kill herself, huh?!" Hitomi screamed accusations at him. "Is that it?! Is this like your idea of fucking afternoon entertainment?! Huh?! HUH?!"

Folken held up his hands and took a step back. "Hey, that isn't what I said at all! By the time I got permission to go outside for a few minutes, your friend here was already stabbing herself."

"She has a name, you know! It's Yukari! And don't you _dare _talk about her like that! Why the hell didn't you try to do something?! Why in the fucking hell did you just let her die?!"

"I didn't."

By that time, Hitomi's blood was boiling, racing through her veins like F-1 cup finals. Both her hands, gripped in white-knuckled fists, were shaking with rage. "How _dare _you . . ." she whispered, her voice barely audible above the rain. She didn't even have a chance to run at him before he stopped her.

"You did."

- X - x - X -

_**If I smile and don't believe,  
Soon I know I'll wake from this dream . . .**_

- X - x - X -

_It was lunch, one month before Yukari's death. She and Hitomi were sitting alone under a tree in the courtyard, eating. Yukari, looking around at the rest of the students, put down her bowl. "How many of them do you think would notice if one of us was missing?"_

_Hitomi kept eating. "What do you mean?"_

_"Like, if I died tomorrow, how many people would notice?" Then she added, "Not counting teachers, since they take roll and all that."_

_"I would," said Hitomi. "I bet Van would to." She nudged Yukari in the side, jeering about the girl's boyfriend, a freshman who, though both agreed was rather cute, in his own weird way, Hitomi did not take seriously. "And Dilandau and our other friends."_

_"That's not a lot."_

_"Well, I'm sure people will _notice_. It's not like they're just totally oblivious to you."_

_"Coulda fooled me."_

_Hitomi stopped eating and turned to her friend. Yukari's shoulder length cherry-colored hair looked untidier that day than usual and there were distinct bags under her eyes. Her uniform, usually crisp and clean, looked rumpled, as if it had been cast aside in a heap when she got home the previous day. _

_"Have you been sleeping lately?" asked Hitomi concernedly._

_"Not really," Yukari admitted. "I dunno . . . I guess I'm just never really that tired anymore."_

_"Has your dad been around?"_

_"He's living with us now."_

_Hitomi knew what was going on immediately. Yukari was suffering child abuse, abuse Hitomi had thought finally over when Mrs. Uchida kicked her husband out of the house after learning of her daughter's deflowering._

_Several years earlier, Mr. Uchida had gotten it into his mind that women his own age weren't any fun anymore. For a while, according to Yukari, he would pay school-age prostitutes off the street to come home with him. Yukari caught him four times when she was a freshman after school, once even in her own bed._

_After she told her mom, Mr. Uchida did not bring home anymore street hos. Instead, he used Yukari to get his kicks. Yukari was unfortunate enough to come home after school everyday and be by herself until Mrs. Uchida got off work at six thirty. Mr. Uchida was unemployed; therefore always home when Yukari arrived. That was the beginning of her sophomore year._

_When Hitomi finally managed to get Yukari to tell her about her dad, she wanted to call the police. But somewhere between the tests on Yukari's rape kits coming up negative and Mr. Uchida's sudden metamorphosis into an ideal father figure, something went wrong and Yukari's case was closed, determined that she was lying to get attention._

_That was when everything hit rock bottom. Mr. Uchida, of course, nothing close to an ideal father figure, threatened Yukari he would kill her if she ever tried something like that again. Yukari had been powerless against her father ever since._

_"Your mom let him come back?" asked Hitomi, appalled._

_"Uh huh." Yukari had gone back to her lunch, shoveling it rapidly down her throat like there was no tomorrow. Almost as if she were purposefully trying to choke on it._

_Hitomi slammed her bowl on the concrete. "That stupid bitch!" she swore. "What the hell was she thinking, letting him back in?!"_

_"I dunno."_

_"God damn her, she's gonna regret that." Hitomi shook her fist menacingly._

_Yukari shrank away, trying to be inconspicuous, and finished her meal in silence._

- X - x - X -

_**Don't try to fix me,  
I'm not broken,  
Hello . . .**_

- X - x - X -

"Yukari didn't need a warrior, you know," said Folken. "She needed a friend."

"I was her friend!" Hitomi retorted sharply. "What the hell do you think I was?!"

"You were always trying to fight for her and protect her from everything. Every time Yukari told you about her mom or her dad, you'd get angry and start threatening them." Folken folded his arms over his chest. Hitomi's fists fell limp at her sides. "Yukari just wanted your shoulder to cry on and your support to help her get through it."

All of the rage drained out of Hitomi like the rain falling overhead and she sank to her knees. "I was trying to help her," she said, starting to cry. "I wanted to help her more than anything."

Folken took a few steps closer and placed a hand on Hitomi's back. "Hey, it's not your fault."

Hitomi lashed out and knocked him away. "What the fuck do you know?! It's all my fault! It's all my God damned fault! I shoulda fucking been here!"

"Did she ever tell you she was going to kill herself?" asked Folken.

Hitomi rubbed her eyes savagely with the back of her sleeve. "No."

"Then how would you have known to be here?" He knelt next to her. "It wasn't your fault this happened."

Hitomi scoffed. "You're full of shit, Folken. You just said it _was _my fault."

Folken sighed and tried to smile. "The first thing you need to know about me, Hitomi, is that you shouldn't believe a thing I say."

"Then how do I know it wasn't my fault?"

"Uh . . ." Folken rubbed his the back of his neck. "I don't know." He smiled a little. Hitomi glared. "Err . . . just believe what you feel is right." He held out a hand. "Come on, Hitomi, let's get out of here."

Hitomi looked from the hand to Folken, suddenly very suspicious. "How do you know my name?"

Folken's smile froze on his face.

"How did you know all that stuff about Yukari and me?" She started to get up, her legs shaking unsteadily beneath her. "What's going on here?"

- X - x - X -

_**I am the lie living for you so you can't hide,  
Don't cry . . .**_

- X - x - X -

_Folken's fourth hour was English 2. He hated English with a vengeance. What possessed anyone to learn the stupid language was beyond him. Why even bother speaking English when everyone in Japan spoke Japanese? And it wasn't like Japanese was such a hard language to learn. It made _far _more sense than English. _

_But Folken had other reasons for taking the class, and the biggest one was sitting two desks in front and to the left of him. Hitomi Kanzaki, with her golden brown hair and glittering green eyes, taking notes and paying avid attention to the teacher at the head of the classroom._

She's so pretty . . . _He thought to himself, so many times he felt like screaming it out in front of everybody. But that would cause him to look like even more of a freak than he already appeared. Imagine, a senior having a crush on a sophomore. It was just _not done.

Who made up these stupid rules anyway?! _He wondered, his mind as far from the English language as it could possibly be. _What's wrong with sophomores anyway? Sure, a lot of them are really immature and all that, but there are some _really _hot girls.

_A girl with red hair next to Hitomi leaned over and whispered something in Hitomi's ear. Hitomi turned and looked around the back of the classroom. Folken quickly averted his eyes and looked down at his homework. For the rest of the class, he didn't look up, for fear she would turn around and find him watching her._

_The bell rang and Hitomi and her friend dove into the throng of students hurrying to lunch. _Okay, this is it . . . _Folken took a deep breath and followed out the door._

_That day he told himself he was finally going to confess his love to Hitomi. It had taken ages for him to even work up the courage to think about the possibility of her _not _being disgusted by him. Folken wasn't a jock, or a rebel, or anything cool or interesting, he was just another genius trying to survive his peers. _

Oh . . . shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit, _said Folken to himself as he approached the place where Hitomi and her friend usually ate their lunch. _I can't go through with this! _With a sudden change of heart, Folken averted his course and crept up into some bushes behind the girls and listened to their conversation. Later, he couldn't figure out what had driven him to eavesdrop in the first place._

_"Did he really say that?" Hitomi pressed with a laugh._

_"Would I lie?" Her friend's face was scarlet. "He seriously just got up in the middle of class and told me he loved me!"_

_They were both howling in glee by this time._

_"I _told _you freshmen were dorks!" said Hitomi. "Only someone as stupid as Van would just shout out they loved you to the whole class!"_

_Her friend shoved her. "Obviously, _you've_ never been in love, Hitomi, otherwise you'd know that when a guy tells you he loves you, it's the sweetest feeling in the world."_

_"Yukari, if any guy ever gets up and does something like that to me, I swear I'll beat the living shit outta him."_

_Yukari rolled her eyes. "This is why you'll never get a boyfriend."_

_"Yeah, well who says I'd even want one?" Hitomi stuck out her tongue. "Too romantic."_

_By this time in the conversation, Folken was slowly creeping away, shocked beyond words. Suddenly, Hitomi wasn't the perfect girl he'd imagined her. All the times he'd wanted to shout out he loved her, to shower her with romantic gifts and whisper sweet nothings in her ear to make her smile, and she _despised _them._

I'm such an ass, _he berated himself. _Just my luck the only girl in school worth liking and she's not a sap. Just perfect . . . _He was about to slink back through the bushes and go about his self-pitying way when he caught snatches of a new subject that made him change his mind._

_". . . If I tell you, he'll kill me."_

What? _Folken came back and peered out at Yukari, who was doing most of the talking._

_"C'mon, I already know about him and the stupid hos," said Hitomi. "I'm your friend—I wanna help."_

_Yukari looked away. "Well, last night he came home really late. Mom was out with some of her friends for a girl's night out or something. She wasn't going to be home until this morning to get ready for work. Dad knew all about it._

_"I was just in my room doing my homework. I wasn't, like, _trying _to piss him off or anything, he just . . . just . . ."_

_"Yukari . . ."_

_"He came in and asked me if I needed any help with anything. I said I was fine, but he asked again. He kept asking till I finally got up and told him I could do everything myself just fine without him. That was when he got really mad and kicked my TV off the stand. I started swearing at him. I mean, that thing cost a lot of money and it was my TV and . . ."_

_Yukari turned her head to face more toward Hitomi and Folken saw a glistening trail of tears falling down her cheek. "He started yelling at me to shut up and I kept yelling at him to go away and then he was on top of me. He started hitting me and pulling on my clothes. I tried to push him off but he's just too heavy . . ."_

_"Oh, God . . ." Hitomi reached out and pulled Yukari into a hug._

_"I'm not like those girls on the streets," she cried into her friend's shoulder. "He kept telling me I was nothing but a whore. I'm not a whore, though! I don't wanna sell my body on the streets! I don't wanna have sex with strange guys, and especially not with my dad!"_

_"Of course you don't," said Hitomi, trying to sooth her but how did one sooth a girl who'd been through hell and back just as they broke the news? "You're nothing like that."_

_"But Dad said I was," Yukari went on. "He said I liked it!" She let out a fresh wail. "I didn't like it though! It hurt and he was mean! He wouldn't let me go! God, I'm not a bad girl! I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!"_

- X - x - X -

_**Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping,  
Hello . . .**_

- X - x - X -

"I know," said Folken to Hitomi. _Might as well bite the bullet. _"I heard about her and her dad and what he did to her. I . . . I was listening to you one day a long time ago." He saw her face fill with horror. "I didn't mean to, I swear! I only wanted to try to talk to you, but I wussed out and hid in the bushes. I didn't mean to hear what I heard, I swear to God!"

"You bastard," was all Hitomi could say. There was not an ounce of energy in her body left for her to fight with. It had all drained to a puddle on the ground just like Yukari's blood.

"Hitomi . . ." he started. "I'm sorry. I didn't want this to happen."

"Go away," she said. "Leave me alone."

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing." But he saw her eyes flicker over to the knife in Yukari's cold hand.

Folken shook his head. "I can't. Hitomi, I can't let you die too."

"Why the hell not?" she looked up at him, new tears in her eyes where she thought she'd cried dry. "What's it to you if I live or die?"

Folken looked away, feeling his cheeks grow hot with embarrassment, despite the gravity of the situation. "Because . . . well . . . I love you."

Hitomi scowled. "Well, fuck you too."

"I knew you'd say that." Folken got to his feet. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a silver cell phone and flipped it open.

"Who're you calling?" Hitomi demanded.

"An ambulance," he replied, dialing the number. "For Yukari."

"They can take me too while they're at it."

Holding the phone to his ear, Folken bent over and picked up the knife. "I don't think so." With his heel, he dug a shallow divot in the dirt beneath the wood chips and dropped the knife into it. The phone picked up as he pushed some dirt to cover it.

"Emergency Services, how can I help you?" asked the voice on the other end.

Folken walked over to Hitomi and handed her the phone. "I think you'll want to talk to them."

Hitomi hesitated.

"Hello?" asked the voice, barely audible above the patter of the rain.

Reaching out a shaky hand, Hitomi grabbed the phone and held it to her ear. "My friend is dead," she said and went on to give the school's address and hanging up before the recipient could get a word in edgewise.

Hitomi flipped the phone closed and threw it in a mud puddle forming near her feet. "Why'd you do it?" she asked Folken. "Tell me the truth."

He knew exactly what she meant. "I did."

_"The first thing you need to know about me, Hitomi, is that you shouldn't believe a thing I say." _Folken's words came to Hitomi's mind as he spoke. "I thought I shouldn't believe a word you say," she accused him.

"No, you shouldn't." he said, "but I know you do."

The wails of an ambulance siren pierced the quiet schoolyard but Hitomi's eyes remained locked on Folken's somber face until she was helped into the vehicle herself.

- X - x - X -

_**I'm still here . . .**_

- X - x - X -

_"That guy's staring at you, Hitomi," Yukari whispered one day in English class._

_"Who?" Hitomi turned around. There didn't seem to be anyone looking her way._

_"That guy, with the blue hair."_

_"Him?" Hitomi was shocked. "But he's a senior. What'd he be looking at me for?"_

_"How am I supposed to know?" Yukari giggled. "All I know is that he hasn't taken his eyes off you since class started."_

_"He's really hot," Hitomi stated._

_Yukari licked her lips. "Yummy."_

_This caused Hitomi to giggle. "Are you sure it was him?"_

_"Yeah!" Yukari almost sounded hurt. "He was totally checking you out!"_

_Hitomi sighed dreamily._ God, he is gorgeous. I sure hope it was him looking at me . . .

- X - x - X -

_**All that's left of yesterday . . .**_

- X - x - X -


	2. Part 2: With You

**Disclaimer: **_Tenkuu no Escaflowne _is property of Bandai and Sunrise, all rights reserved. I am in no way affiliated with these companies, and am not making profit. Any similarities between my work and anyone else's is purely coincidental. Lyrics to "With You" are property of Linkin Park, all rights reserved.

- X - x - X -

_**"Whisper** **Memories" -- **_**Part 2: With You**

By The Last Princess of Hyrule

_- _X - x - X -

_**I woke up in a dream today,  
To the cold and the static / and put my cold feet on the floor,  
Forgot all about yesterday,  
Remembering I'm pretending to be where I'm not anymore . . .**_

- X - x - X -

The next day school let out for the weekend. A crowd of rowdy, hyperactive students rushed out of Tokyo High as fast as humanly possibly, searching out friends or boyfriend/girlfriends, laughing and joking around together, and jumping into cars to go hang out. Hitomi, however, left the school the same way she entered it, with her head down and her feet shuffling at a lethargic rate.

Things were so different without Yukari around. Sure, Hitomi had other friends to hang out with, but they just were not the same. Nothing was really quite that funny, no guys were really that hot, no amount of homework was really that horrible. It was as if everything had just gone from black and white to a plain, boring gray.

Her eyes watching the cracks in the concrete sidewalk on her way to the train station, Hitomi did not notice at first the person who stepped in front of her, but rather their shadow.

"'Scuse me," she murmured, trying to walk around them, but the shadow deliberately stepped in her path.

"How're you doing, Hitomi?"

Hitomi looked up to see Folken Fanel standing in front of her, looking down at her with his face blank and his eyes portraying no emotion. _How so like Folken . . . doesn't give a shit about anything._

"What do you want?" she asked bitterly.

"Just to talk to you."

"Go away."

Again, she tried to walk around him, but this time Folken grabbed her shoulders and held her in place. "You aren't looking very good, Hitomi. I'm worried."

"That's your problem. Let me deal with mine." Hitomi struggled against his grip.

"I want to help."

"I don't give a shit."

"Hitomi, you can't do this to yourself," he said emphatically. Hitomi stopped struggling. "I know you don't like me—I won't even go into why—but I still like you. I mean, if I didn't, I would have made you really regret throwing my phone in the mud."

Hitomi narrowed her eyes and stared at a place beyond him.

"Let my buy you some coffee or something," Folken offered, "and we'll sit down and just talk. I promise it'll make you feel at least a little better."

Hitomi could imagine perfectly what Yukari say to this. _"He totally digs you, Hitomi,"_ she would say with a wink._ "Go for it!"_

"All right," Hitomi heard herself saying.

- X - x - X -

_**A little taste of hypocrisy,  
And I'm left in the wake of the mistake / slow to react,  
Even though you're so close to me,  
You're still so distant / and I can't bring you back . . .**_

- X - x - X -

As she expected, the café just across the street from the school where Folken took Hitomi was packed. It being Friday, all the tables were crowded with either couples meeting for coffee or big tables of friends ordering mocha frappes or cappuccinos. The place was so full that it must have been through some miracle Hitomi could not discern that Folken managed to get them a small table beside the windows overlooking the street.

Folken's eyes skimmed the menu quickly as their waitress, a junior with blonde highlights and insane giggles, smiled flirtingly and flounced off. Hitomi, with her chin resting in her hand, stared glumly out the window at the cars whizzing past.

Folken looked up and noticed. "Are you even going to look at the menu?"

"I already know what I want," Hitomi said without facing him. "Tall iced French Vanilla frappachino with extra cream."

Folken looked somewhat impressed. "I guess I'll have a double latte with cinnamon and a scone."

Hitomi turned to him, something of awe wiping away her grim visage. "That's what Yukari always had. Except her's was always decaf."

"I usually get decaf," replied Folken, "but I have things to do later and I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Me either." Hitomi spotted the flirty waitress bustling through the crowds toward their table and turned back to the window.

"Are you ready to order?" she asked in a rot-your-teeth-sweet voice.

"Yes," said Folken, his eyes back on the menu. "We'll haveone tall iced French Vanilla frappachino with extra cream and a double latte with cinnamon and scone." He folded the menus and handed them to the waitress as she hurriedly jotted down the orders.

"Anything for the scone?" she asked, her eyes obnoxiously wide, batting her fake lashes like some kind of beauty queen. Hitomi caught the double message in her question.

"No, it'll be just fine by itself," answered Folken in a rather cold voice.

The smile faded from the waitress's face as she grabbed the menus. "I'll have those for you in a few minutes," she told him snootily and stalked off.

Hitomi watched her go. "You know, she was asking you out," she stated when the waitress was out of earshot.

Folken tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "I know. Normally I'd ask for some strawberry jam, but I figured she'd probably miss the literal request."

Hitomi gave him a studying look. "You just turned down Millerna, the head varsity cheerleader."

"I know."

"Why?"

"I'm already here with you. What kind of sick freak would I be if I started flirting with another girl right in front of you?" Folken's face twisted in a look of disgust.

"What if I weren't around? What would you have done?"

"Probably the same thing I just did."

- X - x - X -

_**It's true / the way I feel,  
Was promised by your face,  
The sound of your voice,  
Painted on my memories,  
Even if you're not with me,  
I'm with you . . .**_

- X - x - X -

Hitomi gave him a doubtful look.

"Well, it isn't like she'd be _that_ great of company," he explained. "She's shallow, an airhead, obsessed with her image, not to mention anorexic. Need anymore reasons?"

"But she's pretty."

Folken looked sideways at the cheerleading waitress who was bending over another table, her silicon-inflated breasts practically exploding from her shirt and balloon-like butt waving like a flag in the air.

"Not really," said Folken.

Hitomi laughed at the look on Folken's face, a mix of revulsion and a teasing smile.

"See, I told you you'd feel better."

A sudden rush of guilt flooded Hitomi and she shut her mouth. Folken silently cursed himself for saying something. "Shit, Hitomi, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"It's okay," Hitomi assured him with a wave of her hand. "I mean, it's not okay that Yukari's dead, but it's okay for you to remind me of it," she explained hurriedly. "I mean—"

Folken held up a hand to stop her. "Don't worry. It's no big deal. I mean, well, you understand what I'm saying, right?"

Hitomi understood.

"How are you doing with that, by the way?" Folken's tone became serious. "If you want to talk about it, that is," he added on second thought.

Hitomi nodded. "I want to talk. That's why you brought me here, right?" She was silent for a moment and her gaze returned outside. "I think . . . well, I think I might feel better if I just talked to someone about it. It's not like I can really talk to my parents or anything. If that ambulance hadn't brought me home, they wouldn't even know about Yukari . . . They just wouldn't understand. And no one else even knows she's dead yet. Well, except you."

Her left hand rubbed her neck in a tired motion, trying to work out the stiffness from sitting up all night leaning against her bedroom wall.

"Go on," Folken urged gently.

- X - x - X -

_**You / now I see / keeping everything inside,  
You / now I see / even when I close my eyes,  
You / now I see / keeping everything inside,  
You / now I see / even when I close my eyes . . .**_

- X - x - X -

She sighed. "I'm just so fucking confused. Like, nothing makes sense anymore . . . I passed out really late last night and when I headed outside to wait for Yukari this morning and she didn't come, for a second I almost thought she was just sick today . . . But then I remembered everything that happened yesterday and I just wanted to start screaming and beating the shit out of everybody I saw."

Hitomi's brow constricted with angered frustration. "I mean, how can people just go on with their lives like nothing even happened? The people in our building, or at school, or even here—nobody really even knows she's dead."

Behind her, Hitomi heard someone clear their throat. Her blood freezing, she slowly turned and saw Millerna, the waitress, holding a tray with their orders on it.

"Who's dead?" she asked, balancing the drinks on one hand, the other delicately perched on her jutting hip.

"Nobody," said Folken before Hitomi could answer. "It was just an example."

"For what?"

"Nothing of your business."

Millerna's ruby lips puffed out in a dainty pout. "Aw, that's no fun. Maybe I should just take these back to the kitchen." She looked innocently up at the java and wiggled her wrist a little. Hitomi reached out for her frappachino but Millerna moved the tray out of her reach.

"All you gotta do is tell me what's up," Millerna offered sweetly. "Then I'll be happy to you these."

"Just give us the drinks and get out of here," Folken repeated.

"Nope. Not till you tell me."

"It's none of your damned concern," spat Hitomi. Her eyes narrowed and she glared up at Millerna with a fierce scowl.

"Ooo, I think I hit _someone's_ touchy spot," she teased.

"Bitch!" Before anyone knew what she was doing, Hitomi leapt from her seat and slapped Millerna roughly across the foundation-painted cheek.

- X - x - X -

_**I hit you and you hit me back,  
We fall to the floor / the rest of the day stands still,  
Fine line between this and that,  
When things go wrong I pretend that the past isn't real . . .**_

- X - x - X -

Millerna gasped and recoiled, one hand going to the red spot forming on her face, the other sliding the tray onto a nearby table. Across from her, Hitomi stood seething, her hands clenched in tight fists at her sides.

"Hitomi, what are you doing?" called Folken. "Leave her alone—it's not that important!"

But Hitomi did not hear a word he said. Millerna barely had a chance to recover when Hitomi swung at her, connecting squarely with Millerna's left eye. This time, however, Millerna leapt back in an attack of her own, knocking Hitomi to the floor.

"You stupid ho!" the cheerleader screeched, clawing at Hitomi's face with her long manicured nails. Hitomi raised her arms to cover her face and suffered a violent lash of tiny pricks to her skin.

Then, Hitomi brought her knees up and drove them as hard as she could into Millerna's stomach. Millerna responded by hitting harder. Around them, a crowd of excited students had congregated to watch the sudden catfight and root at its opponents. No one except Folken was concerned with breaking it up before someone got seriously hurt.

"Hitomi!" he called, pushing his way through the crowd to get to her. "Hitomi!"

When he was at last in a place where he could see the action, Folken found Hitomi straddling Millerna's stomach, throwing punch after punch into the waitress's screaming face. Little red welts had appeared on Hitomi's arms, looking brighter than they ought from the smeared blood of her many tiny cuts. There was a bruise forming on her right eye, but she looked in far better condition than Millerna.

Millerna's face was a mosaic of purple and red. Her makeup was smeared and the front of her shirt a mess of pale foundation and mascara. There were raw scrapes covering her long slender legs as she kicked viciously in a failed attempt to dislodge Hitomi.

Seeing neither girl had done any lasting damage to the other, Folken shoved into the center of the ring. Grabbing Hitomi around the waist, he lifted her surprisingly light form off Millerna. Anticipating that the waitress would try to rise, which she did, to attack Hitomi and get the upper hand of the fight, Folken placed a foot squarely in the soft spot of her stomach, gently knocking the wind out of her.

"Let me go!" Hitomi screamed, fighting to get back to Millerna. "I swear to God, I'll _kill_ her!"

"It isn't worth it," Folken said, trying to calm her.

"Damn you!" she shouted in his face. "No one disses Yukari like that! _No one_, God damn it!"

"Calm down, Hitomi, please. You're making a huge scene."

Hitomi stopped fighting. "You bastard! You're on her side, aren't you?! You lying fuck!" With a quick jerk, she kicked his shin and his grip loosened in a moment of pain. Free of Folken's restraining grip, Hitomi dashed out of the café without a look back.

"Hitomi!" Folken called after, but she didn't hear. "Fuck it," he muttered, rubbing his leg. On the floor, Millerna was wheezing, being helped to her feet by a pair of her cheerleading cronies.

"What the hell was that all about?!" she demanded of Folken as they converged on him, covering an eye with one hand and making rude motions with the other. Folken shoved her away without taking any notice and ran out the door after Hitomi.

- X - x - X -

_**Now I'm trapped in this memory,  
And I'm left in the wake of the mistakes / slow to react,  
Even though you're so close to me,  
You're still so distant / and I can't bring you back . . .**_

- X - x - X -

Outside he looked around and found not Hitomi's fleeing form, but a crumpled mess of she and her crushed spirit slumped out of sight beneath one of the café windows. She had buried her head in her arms and was crying, wailing sobs only partially muffled by her body.

Folken slid down the window and sat next to her. Hitomi did not seem to notice. Suddenly, it was as if all of his senses were tuned to Hitomi's pain and for a moment, he was unable to think or do anything. Every twitch of her shaking form, every gurgled intake of air, and every tear that fell into the small puddle collecting near her feet he noticed. Suddenly, he felt very awkward and, with words failing him, Folken reached out and timidly rested an unsure hand on Hitomi's shoulder.

_Yukari put a hand on Hitomi's shoulder to comfort her. "Hey Hitomi, what's wrong? You rushed outta school pretty fast. What took you so long anyway? I thought we were gonna meet on the wall right after school to go over to the café and laugh at Millerna. And why are you crying?"_

Hitomi looked up, tears streaming down her face, no longer looking a hard, determined fighter, but weak and vulnerable, like a beaten child.

_"Oh my god . . ." Yukari covered her mouth. "What happened?"_

"Hitomi . . ." Folken whispered.

_"Amano broke up with me," Hitomi told her between sobs. "He . . . he pulled me aside af-after class and told me he . . . he . . . he . . ."_

Folken opened his arms took Hitomi in their gentle grasp.

_Yukari pulled her friend into a tight hug._

"It's all right now . .." he whispered.

_"And then," Hitomi went on, "and then Millerna c-came out and kissed him r-right in front of m-m-me!"_

_Yukari's eyes narrowed. "Millerna?! Oh, that stupid mattress ho!"_

Hitomi hid her face in the folds of Folken's jacket and cried, tears in rivers falling down her cheeks.

_"Oh Hitomi," soothed Yukari, rocking her back and forth._

Folken's hand touched the back of her head, caressing her silky golden brown hair.

_"What should we do?" asked Yukari softly._

"Don't go," Hitomi whispered through her tears. "Don't leave me alone . . ."

"I won't." Folken's reply was right next to her ear.

_"What's going to happen now?" Hitomi asked when she had calmed her choking tears. Her voice was quiet and reserved._

_Yukari sat back. "Well, Mom always told me whenever you break up with a guy, you cry a bit—"_

Folken could feel the dampness of Hitomi's tears on his skin.

_"—and you'll blame it on yourself—"_

"I can't believe I was so stupid," Hitomi mumbled to herself. "I should have known. I should have been there for Yukari. It's all my fault she's gone. If I had been a better friend for her, she wouldn't have killed herself. I should have been stronger. It's all my fault."

_"—then you'll blame it on him—"_

"But she should have said something," added Hitomi somewhat sharply. "If she'd at least said, 'You know, Hitomi, I wish I were dead' or something, at least I could have tried to stop her. If she weren't suck a hard-ass sometimes I could have known what was going on and would have done something about it."

_"—you might even get a little mad—"_

Folken felt a soft punch connect with his ribs.

"No, she just had to go and fucking kill herself," Hitomi went on savagely. "She didn't even stop to think how it'd fuck up my life, or anything like that. I shouldn't even be feeling so depressed like this. I wish I could just cuss her out right here and now for all this fucked up bullshit."

_"—but you'll remember your friends who're there to help you get through all those things." Yukari smiled. _

Folken's hand stopped and he touched her cheek, wiping away some of Hitomi's tears with the back of his fingers. Hitomi looked up, her green eyes shining like dew-covered leaves and met his concerned, tender, loving gaze. A place in her heart that had become so cold since Yukari's death began to feel warm.

The entire world around her melted away and it was only she and Folken. Hitomi could hear his heart pounding and felt her breath come faster, sharper. His eyes, pools of her tears and Yukari's blood, were filled with so many emotions, so much complexity and confusion, she could not understand.

To Folken, though, it made sense. Their faces were so close now, only a shadow from touching. Folken could feel her warm exhale caress his cheek. Consciously and subconsciously, planning but never quite intending it to happen, Folken leaned in the fractional space between them and brushed Hitomi's lips with his.

_"I'll always be here for you," Yukari pledged. "I won't ever leave you."_

_"Me either," replied Hitomi._

_The two girls laughed and embraced._

Momentarily startled, it took Hitomi only an instant to realize what had happened, and then another to realize it was welcome. Feeling confident, Hitomi kissed him back. His hand traced her cheek, hers pulled him closer, locking them in a passionate embrace.

_"Just remember the lesson you learned from Amano the next time you go kissing any boys," Yukari scolded playfully._

- X - x - X -

_**It's true / the way I feel,  
Was promised by your face,  
The sound of your voice,  
Painted on my memories,  
Even if you're not with me,  
I'm with you . . .**_

- X - x - X -


	3. Part 3: Headstrong

**Author's Note: **Due to limited knowledge about Japanese burial traditions, Yukari's funeral is in the American custom. Please respect this difference.

**Disclaimer: **_Tenkuu no Escaflowne _is property of Bandai and Sunrise, all rights reserved. I am in no way affiliated with these companies, and am not making profit. Any similarities between my work and anyone else's is purely coincidental. Lyrics to "Headstrong" are property ofTrapt, all rights reserved.

- X - x - X -

**_"Whisper Memories" -- _Part 3: Headstrong**

By The Last Princess of Hyrule

- X - x - X -

_**Circling, circling, circling your head,  
Contemplating everything you ever said,  
Now I see the / truth I got it down,  
A different motive in your eyes and now I'm out,  
See you later . . .**_

- X - x - X -

Yukari's funeral was set for that Sunday. The day began with rain, as had all the days since her suicide. Dark clouds and smoky vehicle exhaust covered the sky and the city streets were obscure by a thick fog and misty drizzle of rain. Hitomi watched the rainfall from her bedroom window, a dubious look on her face.

_How can I really be going to my best friend's funeral on a day like this? If Yukari were still here, she'd come over to my apartment and we'd watch movies on Dad's big screen with Mom pestering us with drinks and snacks and annoying questions about the rating._ She pressed one hand against the glass, tracing the panes with her other index finger.

On her futon bed was a black knee-length skirt, dark nylons, a black long-sleeved blouse, and a long black overcoat. Hitomi was wrapped in a white terrycloth robe with an indigo floral pattern along the bottom hem and ends of the sleeves. Little vines snaked in impossible twisting designs around broad blooming flowers with exotic names Hitomi did not know. How she wished she could just lounge around in her robe all day instead of getting dressed in the black mourning clothes.

There was a quiet knock on her door. "Hitomi . . .?" came her mother's voice, muffled through the wood. "Are you about ready? The service is starting soon."

"I'll be there in a minute," Hitomi replied. With a tired sigh, she drew closed the curtains and untied the robe, letting it fall in a heap at her feet.

The clothes were less than comfortable, the nylons scratchy and the blouse stiff, her skirt painfully tight around her waist. Grabbing a pair of black barrettes from an ornate wooden jewelry box atop her dresser, Hitomi clipped her hair back and turned critically to her reflection in the mirror. _Much as I hate to admit it, black really is my color . . . Gah! How can I be thinking of clothes at a time like this?! _Hitomi mentally slapped herself.

Mrs. Kanzaki knocked on the door again. "Hitomi? Can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure."

Mrs. Kanzaki entered. She was wearing a long black dress with ruffled cuffs and a similar hem. She had twisted her brown hair up in a plain knot on her head and topped with a black hat and matching veil, masking her face—and her tears—in shadows.

Automatically, Hitomi's mother moved behind her daughter and began straightening her blouse and skirt. "How are you feeling?" she asked softly.

"Fine, I guess."

"Are you sure you don't need to talk about it?" Mrs. Kanzaki pressed. "You know I'm here for you, right?"

"I know."

"You're sure you're all right?"

"Mom, I'm fine," Hitomi insisted, batting her mother away. "I'll be okay."

Mrs. Kanzaki did not look too convinced, but she let the matter stand where it was. She was trying to make Hitomi's day as good as possible and arguing with her would not been the right move toward that goal.

"Well, we're almost ready to leave," Mrs. Kanzaki said.

"I'll be out in a minute," replied Hitomi, still facing her mirror. "I just need to get my music." Mrs. Uchida had requested that Hitomi provide music for the service, which was being held indoors because of the rain, since Hitomi had known Yukari best and Mrs. Uchida wanted to play some of Yukari's favorite songs.

"All right."

Hitomi watched her mother through the reflection on the mirror leave the room and close the door tightly behind her. The family was waiting in the living room for her to be ready. Actually, they weren't quite a family; they were just Hitomi and her parents. Since Yukari's death, Hitomi's younger brother, Mamoru, had been living at a friend's house. Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki wanted Hitomi under as little stress as possible while she was coping with her grief and Mamoru caused his sister a lot of stress. Sighing, Hitomi slumped into a heap on the floor and covered her eyes with her palms, trying to hold the tears inside.

_I don't know how I'm going to do this. I can't bury my best friend. It's not supposed to happen like this. We were supposed to go to America when we graduated and impress all the Americans with how well we can speak English. Now who am I supposed to go with? I don't know anyone else that can speak English that would go with me . . ._

- X - x - X -

_**I see your fantasy,  
You wanna make it a reality / bathe in gold,  
See inside it's outta our hands,  
Well, nowthat's over,  
I see your motives inside,  
Decisions to hide . . .**_

- X - x - X -

Suddenly, she heard the sounds of muffled voices coming from the living room, a knock on the front door of the apartment, and someone coming inside. Hitomi lifted her head and strained her ears to hear the voices. She recognized her mother and father, but the third voice, a deep warm one, she could not place.

Grabbing her CD case and papers with her part of the eulogy, Hitomi put her slippers back on and went out into the living room. In front of the apartment's entrance stood her mother, father, and Folken Fanel. Hitomi froze.

Mrs. Kanzaki spotted Hitomi. "Come on, Hitomi," she said, gesturing her daughter over. "We really should be going."

Hitomi, her eyes watching the people around her, slipped on a pair of black Mary Janes with low heals. No words were exchanged between her parents and Folken, which surprised Hitomi. It was uncharacteristic of her parents to let a stranger into the house, especially a high school student in Tokyo, without subjecting them to a horrible inquisition. Had Yukari's death really affected them so much that they would change their habits? Nothing made sense anymore for Hitomi.

Seeing she was ready, Mr. Kanzaki opened the front door and let everyone into the corridor, coming out last and locking it behind him. They descended four levels of stairs and entered the apartment complex's lobby, which was filled with people in dripping coats and rain-soaked attire.

The funeral home where Yukari had been laid out was only four blocks from the complex, so they decided to walk. Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki huddled under an umbrella and walked swiftly in front down the sidewalk. Hitomi followed at a slower pace, letting the rain, which was falling harder now, beat down on her head in a steady rhythm and soak through to her skin.

Raindrops caught on her eyelashes and Tokyo, though it was only three o'clock in the afternoon, was lit up with tall, sweeping layers of bright neon lights. Signs were flashing, swirling, and vibrating everywhere she looked, advertising more products of as diverse varieties as one could find on a single busy street. High skyscrapers loomed overhead, lights from rooms above piercing the foggy sky with their warm glows.

And then, the rain stopped and its absence startled Hitomi from her musings. Blinking, she looked up and saw the sky blocked by the fabric of a black umbrella.

"How are you, Hitomi?" Folken asked from beside her.

"Are you going to ask me that every time you see me? Well, all right, I suppose," she replied. "Considering . . ." Her eyes followed her parents' forms up ahead. "It's just . . . different."

They stepped through a puddle and Hitomi felt cold water splash her ankles.

"Everyone's acting really weird around me," she said. "Mom and Dad barely say anything to me anymore and whenever I walk in a room and they're talking they go silent. Mrs. Uchida keeps going to tears whenever she sees me and I can't even count the number of times Mr. Uchida's either threatened or come on to me." Hitomi sighed. "I just want everything to go back to the way it used to be."

Folken didn't say anything.

Hitomi blew out her breath. It lingered in the air for a minute, another tiny gray cloud to join the fog already blanketing the city.

"So, what're _you_ doing here?" she asked, looking up at him. Folken's face, as Hitomi had come to expect, was expressionless. Was there any other person in the world able to hide their emotions so well as he? "You didn't really know Yukari, did you?"

"No," he replied, "but I just thought, well, since I was the first to find her . . ." He trailed off.

Hitomi nodded. "I guess that's a good reason."

"I suppose I knew her—or _about_ her really—pretty well because I notice how different things are without her around."

"How so?"

"Everything's been so gloomy since that day," Folken explained. "Especially you. You're not the same person without Yukari around. It's like . . . it's like there's a part of you missing."

He couldn't have put it into better words. Hitomi felt a pang of regret in an empty chamber of her heart where Yukari had been. How right he was. Sometimes Hitomi felt like she was sleepwalking through a world that was only partly real, knowing that something was missing, some ethereal object she could not quite place, then realizing that something was Yukari.

- X - x - X -

_**Back off, I'll take you on,  
Headstrong to take on anyone,  
I know that you are wrong,  
And this is not where you belong . . .**_

- X - x - X -

They arrived at the funeral home several minutes later. It was on the ground floor of a high-rise right on the street only a block from the train station Hitomi and Yukari rode the train to school from. The upper floors of the building were an office for a business of some sort, and below was a morgue.

The building had a haunting dead feel to it when Hitomi entered. The entrance room was cold, almost as cold as outside, and decorated with sad colors of blacks, burgundies, and dark wooden hues. She shuddered and held her coat tightly closed. Folken saw her distress and placed a calming hand on her shoulder. Hitomi hardly noticed as she spotted Mr. Uchida talking to the receptionist at the front desk.

"He's here," she growled, her teeth clenched.

"Who?" Folken asked, shaking the rain out of his umbrella and folding it closed.

"Mr. Uchida." Hitomi jerked her head in the direction of Yukari's father. "How _dare_ he come here?!" Her voice was low and menacing. "He has _no right_ to be here!" She brushed Folken's hand off her shoulder and strode purposefully toward Mr. Uchida.

"Wait, Hitomi!" Folken tried to stop her, but Hitomi's ears were deaf to his words. Eight steps and she grabbed Mr. Uchida roughly by the arm, yanking him around to face her.

"Hitomi!" he gasped, caught unaware by her sudden appearance. "W-what're you doing here? I didn't know you'd be coming." Mr. Uchida found it hard to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

"I should ask you the same thing," Hitomi retorted coldly, "but you don't deserve the chance to explain yourself. Get out of here!"

"What?" Mr. Uchida gave a nervous chuckle. "This is my own daughter's funeral. I have the right to be here." He smiled and patted Hitomi on the head. "You must be confused, Hitomi."

Hitomi was fuming. Mr. Uchida half expected her to burst into enraged flames by the angry fires in her eyes, which were reminiscent of burning forests. "How dare you say she's your daughter?! Yukari deserved better than you for a father! After all the things you did to her, don't you _dare_ presume you can just crawl back in here and pretended everything's like it should have been!"

"Hitomi," started her mother, "what's this all about?"

"It's nothing, Mrs. Kanzaki," Mr. Uchida assured her, smiling and pushing Hitomi away. "Poor Hitomi's surely been having a horrible time since Yukari's passing. Her judgment must be a bit off with all this excitement."

"Damn you!" Hitomi slapped Mr. Uchida across the round face. "It's your fucking judgment that's off, you bastard! No one in their right goddamned mind would do the stuff you did to Yukari!"

Mr. Uchida, who was holding a hand to his cheek, was no longer trying to make Hitomi's outburst look like a mistake. His face had filled with fear and Hitomi could almost hear him willing her in his mind not to tell everyone what he had done.

"What're you talking about, Hitomi?" asked Mr. Kanzaki. He and his wife, as well as Folken and Mrs. Uchida, were standing around Hitomi and Mr. Uchida. Hitomi was glowering wickedly and Mr. Uchida's high-set forehead was shiny with sweat.

Hitomi thrust an accusing finger in Mr. Uchida's face. "This sick bastard's the reason Yukari's dead! He's been raping her ever since the beginning of the school year!"

Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki gasped. Mr. Kanzaki grabbed his wife's shoulders as she staggered back and both looked horrified. Mrs. Uchida had fresh tears in her eyes and Folken scowled down at Mr. Uchida with his cold gaze.

"He's been lying," Hitomi went on, "about everything ever since Mrs. Uchida threw him out the first time. He keeps crawling back to her and saying he's changed, but low, scum-sucking fucks like him don't change!" Hitomi spat ever word as if it were poison. All the feelings of anger, spite, malice, blame, and hatred since Yukari's death solidified into one purpose and it was vengeance by destroying the source of Yukari's torment.

"I can't believe," she continued, "that _none of you_ could see through all his lies, his fake reformation, and pure bullshit to the monster he is! How can any of you come here today and say you tried your best to help Yukari when you let _him_ wonder amongst you as you speak?"

She turned to where Mr. Uchida, white-faced and frozen, stood. "And _you_, if I ever—_ever_—see your face again, I swear on Yukari's grave I won't hesitate to kill you." There was such ferocity in her voice; Mr. Uchida had no trouble believing she would carry out her threat.

"Get the fuck out of here and don't ever come back," she snarled.

With everyone's gaze following him, Mr. Uchida backed toward the door. His eyes darted desperately from one face to the next, searching for some bit of sympathy to his plight. But even weak, romantic Mrs. Uchida, crying freely into her hands, would not give her husband another chance to hurt her again. Mr. Uchida knew it was over; he had lost his hold on her forever. He slowly backed out of the funeral home and was never seen again.

- X - x - X -

_**Visions manifest,  
Your first impression's got to be your very best,  
I see you're full ofshit and that's all right,  
This is your plague /got to get there every night,  
Well now that's over . . .**_

- X - x - X -

The ceremony was cold, quiet, reserved, and, as Yukari—who thought funerals were the worst sort of torture a person could endure—would have said, dead. At the head of the room was a shallow alter covered in brightly blooming flowers amidst which stood Yukari's open coffin.

Yukari looked ghostly, even in the smooth yellow light of the big hall where the ceremony was held. Her skin was white and her cheeks dusted a cold, frosty rose. She was wearing a black designer dress with lattice straps down the sides that, though she swore she would never be caught dead in, she secretly adored. Hitomi hated the irony of it all.

A stuffy church pastor delivered a rather long and tedious monologue about death, god, and life after death. He was a fat balding fellow in black priest's clothes with a forehead slick and sweaty. Hitomi, who was sitting in the second row next to Folken a little way from her parents, found him difficult to listen to and herself paying closer attention to the music playing in the background, a collection of Yukari's favorites.

Most of the songs were sung by a band called Linkin Park, with whom Yukari had been obsessed to the point of insanity during life. "Numb," "Breaking the Habit," "Somewhere I Belong," "Crawling," and "Points of Authority" played behind the priest's speech and Hitomi sang along with each one in her head.

Eventually, Mrs. Uchida stepped up to the podium and delivered Yukari's eulogy, most of it into her handkerchief where she hid her face from the congregation. Mrs. Uchida wept freely with the words as if she were hearing and feeling them touch her heart for the first time, as they were Hitomi, rather than rereading the same speech she had worked on for several days now.

At the end, she motioned Hitomi to take over. Hitomi took the stand with her eyes wiped dry and a determined visage.

"Yukari," she began, "was my closest—my best—friend ever since one day in primary school when she shared her chocolate pudding with me. We've always been really close, and I don't think there was ever something we couldn't tell each other.

"There are a lot of things about Yukari that most people don't know. Like, that she always had a horrible crush on one of our friends, Dilandau Albatou, since seventh grade but never had the guts to tell him. Or that her favorite movie was never actually _Queen of the Damned_, but _Beauty and the Beast_. And especially not that she really hated American rap but pretended to like it to impress her boyfriend, Van."

There were a few reserved laughs and Dilandau turned a little pink, but most of the reactions were polite, not completely heartfelt. There was too much sadness in the air for Hitomi to lift.

"I suppose I probably shouldn't have told you all that stuff, especially since Yukari made me swear never to tell anybody till the day I died, but I like to think she would have wanted everyone to know the truth. Maybe not about Dilandau . . . but I can't help spreading the juice, and that's really what best friends do. Yukari was always telling everybody stuff about me and, even though a lot of times I pretended to be mad, really I though it was pretty funny."

Hitomi took a breath and looked out over the congregation. "I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this. There are a lot of things I know I should be saying about Yukari, except that, without her here, none of them seem to matter anymore. Yukari was more than just a friend to me. We were like a part of each other and, with her gone like this, I feel empty.

"Sometimes during the day, I stop and wonder what I would be doing if Yukari were still here. I try not to think about it, but it's like trying to ignore a part of myself. I really can't do it. It sounds pretty crazy, I know, but life doesn't have to make sense.

"I still don't understand why Yukari's gone. I mean, I know the reason well enough, but I can't help wondering why. Why'd it have to be like this? Why did things have to get so bad that Yukari thought there was no way out? How come no one tried to help her?

"It's because Yukari was strong. Before this year began, she was the fighter between she and I. She was the one beating up the kids who called us names or threw fruit cups at our heads, but I was always the one picking her up and straightening her uniform or dabbing her cuts with toilet paper after she'd had a bad fight. We were always there for each other.

"In her memory, I want to dedicate this song. I always said Yukari was soft for romantic music, despite her attitude. She doesn't seem like the type at all, but Yukari really was a sucker for romance. I'd like you to take a few minutes and listen and think about how you knew Yukari and if she showed you the true her."

- X - x - X -

_**Back off, I'll take you on,  
Headstrong to take on anyone,  
I know that you are wrong,  
Headstrong, headstrong . . .**_

- X - x - X -

The volume on the music in the background turned up and the sounds of "My Lover's Gone" by Dido echoed on the walls. Hitomi stepped off the dais and took her seat again. The congregation, lost in thought to the soothing melody, did not notice the tears in her eyes.

"My lover's gone, his boots no longer by my door, he left at dawn, and as I slept I felt him go, returns no more, I will not watch the ocean . . ." sang Dido as Hitomi took her place.

_God, how can this be happening?_ Wondered Hitomi. _How can I possibly be going through all this? It hurts so bad . . ._

". . . Bring him home again, my lover's gone, I know that case will be my last, no more his song, the chill upon his lips has past, I sing alone, while I watch the ocean . . ." went the song.

Hitomi's eyes were on the coffin. _It seems like she's just faking it, but she hasn't sat up yet and started laughing and telling everybody the joke's on us. She just keeps laying there dead when she should be sitting next to me with her elbow in my ribs wondering out loud how much longer Father Skinhead's going to yammer. _

". . . My lover's gone, no earthly ships will ever bring him home again," Dido continued, "bring him home again . . ."

_I wonder if Yukari thought at all about how I would feel after she was gone,_ Hitomi thought spitefully. _I bet she wouldn't have done it if she actually had. Yukari's not heartless like that . . . at least, not the Yukari I knew. This world just didn't want her here. That's why her dad did all that stuff to her and why she was always so sad. She just didn't belong here._

". . . And as I slept I felt him go, returns no more, I will not watch the ocean, my lover's gone, no earthly ships will ever bring him home again, bring him home again . . ."

- X - x - X -

_**Where you belong,  
This is not where you belong,  
I can't give everything away,  
This is not where you belong,  
I won't give everything away,  
This is not where you belong . . .**_

- X - x - X -


	4. Part 4: Easier To Run

**Disclaimer: **_Tenkuu no Escaflowne _is property of Bandai and Sunrise, all rights reserved. I am in no way affiliated with these companies, and am not making profit. Any similarities between my work and anyone else's is purely coincidental. Lyrics to "Easier To Run" are property of Linkin Park, all rights reserved.

X - x - X -

**_"Whisper Memories" _Part 4: Easier to Run**

By The Last Princess of Hyrule

X - x - X -

_**It's easier to run,  
Replacing this pain with something more,  
It's so much easier to go,  
Than face all this pain,  
You're all alone . . .**_

X- x - X -

When the service ended the mourners slowly dispersed, lingering near the exit where Mrs. Uchida stood to express their grief and sympathy to her weeping form. Hitomi, however, walked to the front of the room where Yukari's coffin stood and looked into it. Only the front half was open, showing Yukari's face and upper body framed by silver silk lining. A white lace veil, which hardly obstructed Yukari from view, draped over everything. Hitomi reached out and touched the wood frame.

"I can't believe this is it," she said to Folken, who was next to her. "I can't believe this is the last time I'll ever see her."

Folken said nothing.

"I wish I'd been there. I know I could have stopped her from doing this." There was a moment of silence and Hitomi looked up at Folken. "You saw her, didn't you? Please . . . tell me what happened."

Folken hesitated. He didn't think Hitomi would be deal with the details of her friend's death and he had told himself a thousand times over that she was not going to hear it from him. But Hitomi's pleading voice crushed his resolve and inside he knew he'd be cursing himself for a long time after this.

X - x - X -

_**Something has been taken from deep inside of me,  
A secret I've kept locked away,  
No one can ever see,  
Wounds so deep they never show,  
They never go away,  
Like moving pictures in my head,  
For years and years they've played . . .**_

X - x - X -

_The table of first graders Folken was working with sat in silence as they puzzled over the paper of simple addition problems in front of them. First graders were the easiest group of primary school students to work with—it wasn't until third grade that they got out of hand—and the ones Folken tutored after school each day were the most mellow of all._

_The library where the help groups worked had been quiet for nearly the entire session that day, except for a handful of excited fourth graders with their faces pressed to the playground-facing windows just before 3pm. More than once, the assistants shushed their whispering and tried to get them to sit down, but had no impact. _

_Finally, Folken got up and went to the window, intending to herd the students back to their tables, and looked outside to see what was causing all the commotion. Sitting on her knees in the bark chips piled amongst the metal play equipment was a girl fifteen or sixteen years old in a brown-and-cream high school uniform._

_Above her, the sky was covered in dark clouds and a steady rainfall drenched everything. The girl's reddish hair was plastered flat to the sides of her face and she was thoroughly soaked, but she did not move. Her gaze was directed down at something in her lap and she appeared to be oblivious to everything else, even the rain._

_"Okay, everybody go sit down," Folken told the kids. "There's nothing interesting outside."_

_Some whining ensued, as well as lots of questions about the girl, but Folken answered them all with the stern command to finish their work. When everyone was immersed once more in their studies, Folken checked on his table to see that its occupants were on task, and then went to talk to the head librarian._

_"What was that all about?" she asked him in a whisper. _

_"There's a girl sitting outside on the playground," Folken informed her quietly. _

_"In this rain? Doing what?"_

_"I don't know. Just sitting there."_

_The librarian's eyebrows knit together in thought. _

_"Do you mind if I go out and talk to her?" he asked._

_"No, go ahead," she replied. "Tell her she shouldn't be on the grounds until after school is out."_

_"All right." Folken discreetly left the library, fortunately not attracting the attention of any of the kids, which would have caused as much disruption as the girl._

_Outside, lightening flashed and thunder rolled while rain collected in puddles on the asphalt. Folken shivered in his school jacket as he hurried to the playground. The girl did not notice him coming. She seemed completely absorbed in her own world. _

_"Hey," he called when he reached her. "What're you doing here?"_

_With a startled gasp, the girl looked up. Folken recognized her in an instant. It was Hitomi Kanzaki's friend, Yukari, from English 2. Quickly, she covered the thing in her lap with her hands. "What's it to you?"_

_"You shouldn't be on these grounds until after school lets out," Folken informed her. "You want to tell me why you're here?"_

_"No, I don't think so," Yukari narrowed her eyes and the corner of her lip turned up in a kind of snarl. "It isn't any of your business. Go away."_

_"No need to get defensive, I'm just trying to talk to you."_

_Yukari gave a bitter laugh. "Huh, that's what they all say."_

_"What?"_

_"I told you to get outta here!" She glared at Folken coldly with what should have been a sharp gaze, except that her eyes seemed unfocused, as if she was looking through him. Suddenly he noticed she did not look very good. Her skin was pale and she looked dizzy the way someone looked when they just got off a roller coaster and was about to throw up._

_"Are you okay?" Folken asked with concern. "You don't look so good."_

_"It's none of you're business!"_

_Yukari put out one hand and tried to push herself up but all she managed was to unsteady herself and topple over on her side. Out of her lap spilled a silver switchblade, the blade out. A red stain was visible where her hands had lain on her skirt, and when she fell her wrists landed facing up, exposing several deep cuts on each, smeared with blood and fresh oozing out. _

_"Shit, you need some help. I think we should get you to a hospital." Folken reached out and tried to help her up, but Yukari shoved him away with what little strength she had. _

_"I told you . . . to go away!" Her breath was coming quickly and beads of sweat had appearing among the raindrops on her forehead. "Just let . . . me die . . ." The fierceness had faded from her eyes and she looked so tired, as if her very soul were exhausted from the effort of living._

_Folken knelt beside her calmly. His philosophy of suicide was different from most people's: suicide was a person's choice and they had as much right to take their own life as to preserve it. He did not support the idea of killing one's self for any reason, but it was not in his opinion to get in the way of their choice. One's choices shaped one's fate and Folken did not believe in interfering in fate. It goes without saying that his was not a popular ideal._

_"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" Even if he supported her choice, he hoped there might be a chance she did not._

_Yukari's eyes were full of tears. "I can't go . . . back anymore . . . I'm not . . . not that person . . . they don't . . . know anything about . . . me . . ."_

_She was fading fast. Yukari's aim was good and she had cut the main blood vessel in her wrist, the one that would lead to a fast death. It wouldn't be more than a few more minutes. _

_"I don't really . . . want to do . . . this . . . but . . ." she looked up at Folken, her gaze fearful and desperate. "Am I . . . really . . . that . . . pe . . .person . . . ?"_

_He shook his head. _

_"Don't . . . tell . . . D . . . Dad . . . ."_

_And she was gone._

X - x - X -

_**If I could change I would / take back the pain I would,  
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would,  
If I could stand up and take the blame I would,  
If I could take all this shame to the grave I would . . .**_

X - x - X -

Hitomi's eyes never left Yukari's face. In her mind, she played through Folken's account of her friend's last minutes of life, and somehow Hitomi felt nothing. There was no more sadness in her heart, no more tears in her eyes, nothing she could hear that could possibly shake her. She was blank.

"Unbelievable," she said monotonously. "Un-fucking-believable."

Behind her were the sniffling and murmuring voices of the mourners. Everyone was crying and talking, sad and regretful, but no one was broken and incomplete the way Hitomi was. No one hurt so deeply inside that they could not remember a time before the pain. No one was so immersed with grief that they could no longer feel anything else.

"Go away," Hitomi told Folken, not looking at him. "Stay away from me."

For a long moment, he watched her, searching her face for any indication of her thoughts, but there was none. And then, with whatever reason, he left. He did not say anything, he did not hesitate, he just turned around and walked away.

Hitomi was alone.

Several minutes passed. The ceremony hall began to empty—Hitomi could hear the voices beginning to fade—but she stayed by Yukari's coffin.

Then there was a voice behind her. "This has been a really hard time for you, hasn't it?"

Hitomi turned and saw Dilandau Albatou watching her with sadly. She nodded.

"I mean, I know all of us," he said, referring to the circle of friends he, Hitomi, and Yukari had shared, "will really miss her, but I know it hurts you the most."

Dilandau, with the same silver hair as the coffin's lining, shining tears that reflected light the same way as Yukari's once-bright eyes, and dressed in the black of the darkness that claimed her. They would have been great together, Hitomi knew. How hard it must have been for Dilandau right then, trying to say goodbye to a friend whom his perspective of was just drastically altered. How would he come to peace with the loss now?

"I'm really sorry," Hitomi began, "if what I said . . . if I've done anything . . ."

Dilandau waved her off. "It's nothing. No big deal." He shrugged and almost smiled. "I mean, it's kinda different . . . knowing how she felt and all that, but . . . I dunno . . . I guess I kinda knew all along . . . I don't know how to explain it."

"I understand."

Dilandau reached out and touched her shoulder. "Are you gonna be all right?"

_How many times are people going to ask me that?_ Hitomi wondered off-hand. "Yeah, I'll be okay," she told Dilandau. He did not seem how little feeling was in her responses.

Dilandau looked skeptical, just like everyone else when they heard that answer. With good reason, of course, because they were concerned for Hitomi and the way she was coping with "such an untimely tragedy." No one, however, really took the time to look deep into her soul and see the truth.

X - x - X -

_**Sometimes I remember the darkness of my past,  
Bringing back these memories I wish I didn't have,  
Sometimes I think of letting go and never looking back,  
And never moving forward so there'd never be a past . .**_ .

X - x - X -

After the reception, Hitomi and her parents went home. It was evening by that time and, had there been any visible sun at all that day, it would have already set, but it was just as dark outside when she returned to her room as it had been when she left. Perhaps darker.

That night, Hitomi's parents were attending an important dinner meeting with some representatives from America who were interested in doing business with the company Mr. Kanzaki worked for. As head of the translation services department, Mr. Kanzaki was obligated to attend, and Mrs. Kanzaki as well, for both had R.S.V.P. a month in advance, when the preparations began. Though neither parent wanted to leave Hitomi alone that night, the dinner was an obligation they could not get out of.

After they left, Hitomi slumped down on the couch with a carton of banana-fudge-ripple ice cream and watched imported cartoons. Then sometime around seven, Mrs. Uchida came by and dropped off several boxes of Yukari's stuff that she figured Yukari would want Hitomi to have.

The first box was clothing. Hitomi pushed it aside. The second contained Yukari's Linkin Park collection—posters, clothes, CDs, and a variety of more obscure merchandise—her surround sound stereo system, music, books, movies, and some other hobby-type items. The last box was random doodads.

Hitomi sifted through these boxes in front of the TV. In a mosaic jewelry box, she found a tiny shrine of things that must have belonged to Dilandau at one time—an old ID card, a band-aid, some notes he passed Yukari in class, a sticker, a pen, and some lint. Most of the items in the third box seemed to be stupid little things Mrs. Uchida had found and did not know what to do with.

A while later, the stuff from the boxes was strewn all over the apartment and Hitomi was sitting on the countertop watching her microwave dinner spin as it heated up. It was nine. Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki would not be home for another two or three hours. The microwave beeped and Hitomi pulled out her dinner. Taking a knife from the drawer, she sliced off the plastic and looked around for some clean utensils. Another half hour passed. Hitomi threw away her empty tray and looked at the time. Ten o'clock.

Grabbing some of Yukari's CDs from the second box and the knife on the counter, Hitomi went into the bathroom and closed the door. She set her things on the floor and turned on the hot water faucet on the bathtub, shoving the stopper in the drain. As the tub slowly filled, Hitomi picked a CD at random, stuck it in the bathroom CD player, pressed play, and cranked up the volume to nearly its highest setting. Was it fate that the sounds of Linkin Park were those that blasted out?

Hitomi pulled off her clothes and turned off the water, stepping slowly into the tub. Steam clouded the air and she watched it fog the mirror, blocking the reflection of the opposite side of the wall from view. With a deep sigh, she let herself sink beneath the water's surface. Thirty seconds later she came up again for air.

The light in the bathroom was faint. Only the light directly overhead the bathtub was on and Hitomi had adjusted it to a medium setting. The clutter of objects in the bathroom cast dark shadows across each other and Hitomi watched their haunting forms dazedly for a few minutes, feeling the steam settle on her chest.

After a few minutes, she picked the kitchen knife off the floor and twirled it idly in the palm of her hand, watching in a sort of trance the light reflecting off its steel surface. Yukari had died by a knife like this, with a cold blade of ice. It was only fitting that, if Hitomi were going to follow her friend into death, that she go the same way. With her grip calm and steady, she touched the point lightly to her left wrist and etched a tiny line across the little bump of a blue vein beneath its delicate layer of skin.

As the knife left its mark, the blood welled out, each bead blossoming from the cut like a tiny flower. It was beautiful in a dark surreal way, elegant and fine. Hitomi moved the knife and drew another line beneath the first, then slowly made three more lines and changed hands, making five identical marks on her right wrist. Then she set the knife onto a gray bathmat on the floor. Crimson blood staining its blade dripped on the tile floor, the shadow the knife cast on it making it look black.

Hitomi lay back in the tub and water cascaded over her shoulders, only her neck, head, and arms dry. Her right arm she draped out over the rim, the side of her hand bumping the tub's smooth surface, feeling the condensation that had collected on it. Her left she leaned against the tiled wall. A small scarlet trail dribbled down into the tub, and swirling red designs flowered where blood dripped into the water. They reminded Hitomi of clouds the way they drifted across the water's surface and slowly faded away.

Slowly, Hitomi closed her eyes. The stereo's throbbing bass changed the rhythm of her heart to an irregular pulsation. The music sounded far away, like she was listening to it on an old radio from the 80s. Everything seemed to slow down and she became very aware of her breathing. The sound of a door closing seemed distant as a plane flying far above her head. Quite reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

Above her stood Folken.

He was dressed in the same black shirt and slacks from the funeral that morning, his hands in his pockets, looking down at her with no expression in his scarlet eyes. Hitomi, completely naked, looked back at him with the same gaze, unembarrassed by her body or their situation.

"What do you want?" she asked simply. She did not ask how he had gotten in or any details to that extent. "Why are you here?"

"I thought you might be here," he replied, referring to her suicidal condition, "like this."

Hitomi sighed and closed her eyes. "Can't you just leave well enough alone?"

"No. I want to help you."

"Yeah, you and everybody else, but it's not gonna do any good. Yukari's dead. I'm not. We're not together anymore." She sank a little deeper into the tub. The water was beginning to turn pink.

"I don't think Yukari would have wanted you to die too." Folken crouched beside the tub on the bathmat.

"Then why'd she leave me like this?" Hitomi's questions were tired and had little feeling, her loss of blood beginning to take its toll on her consciousness.

"She felt trapped and she was scared," Folken told her. His voice was warm and soothing, but Hitomi didn't notice. "She didn't want to go, but she didn't think she had any other way out." He looked at her sadly. "She didn't want it to end this way."

Hitomi opened one eye and looked up at him. Folken was no longer watching her; his gaze was locked onto the stereo on shelf just behind the tub. His visage seemed calm and expressionless, as Hitomi had come to recognize as his nature.

But in his eyes, Hitomi saw tears.

At first, she thought they were condensation, some trick her drowsy eyes were playing on her mind, and then they began to fall in little trails down his cheeks. Folken was crying. Folken. The one she thought had no heart, who could feel no compassion, happiness, despair, or even grief. Folken, who seemed so cold and distant, even when they kissed, was broken. No longer was his face blank and his words without feeling. Sadness and despair had come free and Folken's sorrow was as evident as Hitomi's suffering.

Slowly, Hitomi lifted her right hand, which felt as if it were laden with bricks, and lightly touched his arm. A few drops of blood glistened on the dark fabric of his shirt and a little bathwater spilled over the rim of the tub.

"I didn't want her to go," said Hitomi in a quiet voice quavering with desolation. "I didn't want to find her on the playground . . . I didn't want to deliver a eulogy at her funeral . . . I didn't want to feel this emptiness . . . I didn't want any of this to happen . . ."

He turned to her and Hitomi could swear she saw a look of wonder cross his face. The image made her aching heart leap. "But I do want your help . . ." her voice was barely above a feeble whisper as she reached up her other tired arm and wrapped the two around his neck."I do . . . want you . . ."

Gently, Folken reached out and lifted Hitomi from the bathtub, one arm under her knees, the other around her back holding her shoulder. Water cascaded onto the bathmat in pink-tinted torrents. Hitomi leaned her head against Folken's chest and closed her eyes. Before he could even carry her from the bathroom, she passed out and sank into the black abyss of unconsciousness.

X - x - X -

_**Just washing it aside,  
All of the helplessness inside,  
Pretending I don't feel this place,  
It's so much simpler than change . . .**_

X - x - X -

When she awoke a couple days later, the first thing Hitomi saw was Folken sitting in a chair near the foot of her bed. He was asleep, his head lolling to one side near his shoulder. She looked around.

She lay in a bed with white sheets and several fluffy pillows inside a small rectangular hospital room. Protruding from one arm was an IV tube hooked to a plastic bag half filled with donor blood. To Hitomi's right was a door and window facing the halls, the privacy shades on both drawn closed. On the other side was a window, also closed, which looked out over downtown Tokyo.

Through the blinds streamed yellow bars of sunlight.

On the periphery of her vision, Hitomi noticed Folken stir. As he opened his eyes and blinked away sleep, she felt her heart growing warm again, a feeling she had come to associate with the time they kissed, one that had been absent since Yukari's death.

When Folken saw her awake, he smiled. His feelings were no longer hidden beneath a mask of cold acceptance. He was open and expressive, the sight of which made Hitomi feel good inside. Sometimes, to hold things in is to miss great opportunities, relationships, and Folken wanted to experience them. _He really _does_ care . . . he cares about me . . . _

"I'm glad you're awake," he said, standing, and walked over to the side of her bed. He touched her arm. "I'm sure everyone else will be happy to hear so too."

"Everyone else?" Hitomi thought he was referring to her parents, but the way he said everyone made her want think it encompassed a much larger group of people.

Folken's smile brightened and he pointed to a table in the corner Hitomi had not noticed. Its surface was covered with get-well-soon cards, vases of flowers of every color under the rainbow, bright bouncing balloons, and an assortment of charming stuffed animals. From the pile, Folken plucked a white plush bear with a green ribbon and handed it to Hitomi.

"Everyone's been really nervous since you were admitted," Folken explained. "They—we—were afraid we'd lose you just like Yukari."

Amongst the cards were pictures in frames, pictures of Hitomi's friends and family, and there were quite a few. Until that moment, she had not really realized there were so many people who cared about her. So many people, who noticed her when she spoke, knew her face when she walked by, and enjoyed her company. So many people who liked her.

Folken sat on the edge of her bed and stretched an arm around her shoulders. Hitomi pulled him closer until he was leaning into her, his cheek next to hers. For the first time that week her heart felt content and she wished she could stay in that moment forever. Then, there was a knock on the door. Through the blinds, Hitomi could see her parents and Mamoru waiting to be let inside.

"You've got some visitors," Folken pointed out.

"I know." Hitomi smiled. The empty place where Yukari had been was no longer empty, for a piece of Yukari's immortal soul resided within, fulfilling her promise to be with Hitomi forever.

That was the first day the sun had shown in Tokyo for almost two weeks and Hitomi could feel it lifting her heart to the sky. Up in heaven, Yukari was surely looking down on her with glossy white angel wings sprouting from her back and for a moment, Hitomi almost felt a pair of her own.

X - x - X -

_**If I could change I would / take back the pain I would,  
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would,  
If I could stand up and take the blame I would,  
I would take all my shame to the grave . . .**_

X - x - X -

**Afterword**

I want to thank the following people who were involved in the creation of this story, whether they knew it or not.

**My mom:** For impressing the fact that suicide was never the answer and giving Hitomi a lot of good opinions. And then again for listening to me go on and on about this story at random times whenever I felt like it.

**Rhea:** For taking an uncharacteristic break from her obsessive editing and grammar checking of my stories and letting me try to do this one by myself, then going back over my work to find what I missed. And then for talking Hitomi out of killing herself the first, second, and third time.

**Rai:** For music ("Headstrong" by Trapt, "Easier to Run" by Linkin Park, and "My Lover's Gone" by Dido), Escaflowne, mayhem, and because she started Yukari's Linkin Park obsession. Also for letting me borrow Folken (who she hides in her basement) and letting me torment him for a while. And then for telling me about her mom, and **her mom:** Whose character and circumstance were the loose framework of Mrs. Uchida.

**My friends, Kayla and Amanda:** For having absolutely no modesty when they were around me, and being themselves all the time and showing me how they're both an integral part of each other, just like Hitomi and Yukari.

**Another one of my friends, Anerchia:** Because she watched the Escaflowne movie on her own free willand has at least some idea what I'm talking about when I go off on one of my customary Escaflowne rants.

**Susan:** For listening to a story of suicide and suffering as it unfolded, then showing Hitomi the way back to life.

**My family:** Whose reactions on the topic of suicide became those of Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki.

**My brother, Frostbyte:** For being so disgusted at the fact that the pairing was Folken/Hitomi, then proceeding to read the entire story out loud upside-down as I wrote.

**And to an anonymous someone:** For telling me about her father, who became Mr. Uchida, for having suffered the same pain as Yukari and being strong enough not to end her life like Yukari.

This story is a story of life that plays itself out many times over in real life. As I worked on this, my eyes were opened to similar happenings around me. It's almost ironic, I think, how it all worked out, because almost every instant in this story is based on something that happened to someone I talked to in real life. I guess that makes this a different kind of work of fiction. A fiction of a realism of a world where these happenings are all too common.


End file.
